Travel bug fun...

So I mentioned that astronaut travel bug, Little Lovell, that wants to visit geocaches near NASA bases key to the Apollo program. My plan is to hand the bug over to brian1789, who travels to JSC in Houston every now and then. But before the handover happens, I am having a bit of extra fun with it.

DEC decided today that Little Lovell needed to see the National Research Council of Canada, where some aerospace research happens on this side of the border. We took some photos of it and ourselves by a pretty mirrored globe in a fountain, surrounded by meadow, near some of the research buildings in the complex.

And it gets better... This travel bug also wants to see museums where spacecraft that Lovell flew in are housed. Gemini 12 is housed at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, and while my O'Hare stopover tomorrow isn't long enough to risk a quick trip over, I *will* at least get to photograph the travel bug with an astrophysicist who works at Adler. (My old college friend Geza. I will see him and his wife Kathy, who is also a good friend, during a break between flights tomorrow. I was maid of honor at their wedding over a decade ago, and tomorrow I will get to meet their two young daughters for the first time :-)

Bugs... In... Space!

Oh, wow.

So I mentioned that I was going to photograph the Little Lovell travel bug with my friend Geza, an astrophysicist who works at Adler Planetarium.

I explained the whole story to Geza, and he said, "So do you think they would be happy if I took a picture of the travel bug with Lovell himself?"

I think my response was reminiscent of the noises made during a particularly infamous movie scene that took place in Katz's Deli in NYC.

Apparently Lovell wanders through the Adler every few months, and so Geza plans to take a photo of Little Lovell with the actual astronaut Lovell in front of Gemini 12.

And, if this can be imagined, it gets even better than that. Geza's currently working on a project that involves shooting balloons to 100,000 feet altitude - the Adler is planning to become a part of the space program - and so he's gonna include the little bug on one of those flights. I wonder if any other travel bug has achieved that high an altitude?

And *then* he'll send the travel bug back to me, so that I can give it to brian1789 to take it on yet more adventures around NASA bases.

Wow, the events that unfold when a little astronaut travel bug is placed in a tupperware beneath a tire rim outside a highway rest stop beside a forest in Seekonk, Massachusetts...

In other news, I had a delightful visit with Kathy and Geza and their enchanting 2 and 1 year old daughters Sophia and Eleanor. It was so good to see them all! Little Eleanor liked playing with my beaded necklace :-)

Just boarded at O'Hare, and will be glad to be home soon!

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Home very sweet home... :-)